


self-portrait: silk

by themorninglark



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Cameo: Mari, Cameo: Phichit, M/M, Tie Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 21:05:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8816239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/pseuds/themorninglark
Summary: In which Katsuki Yuuri considers the weight of silk against his throat.





	

**Author's Note:**

> or: a love letter to Katsuki Yuuri and his tie kink.

 

 

Later, when the cameras have left them for now, Victor will take off his glove. He'll brush the sweat-slicked hair away from Yuuri's forehead with the back of his hand, smile like a blade slicing a fine line into the ice. His lips are pink, like the tip of his nose. His jacket hangs askew off his shoulder. Even rumpled, it is dignified, like Victor; even as Yuuri reaches to cup Victor's cheek and trace one thumb slowly along the strong curve of his jaw, he is reverent.

The end of the corridor is quiet, the stolen moment tranquil, in its urgency. There is no music now for them to dance to. They've learned the unspoken rhythms of each other, over the months.

 _Yuuri, Yuuri,_ trips off Victor's tongue and his fingertips like a lyric in search of its wild harmony, and then he does not say anything else. Neither does Yuuri.

They have spent their words already, in the glare of spotlights and flashlights.

Skates still dangling off his wrist, Yuuri takes a slight step back. His free hand slides its way down to the dip of Victor's throat.

"Sorry I yanked your tie like that," he says. He feels his face reddening a little as he straightens the half-Windsor, evens out a tiny wrinkle. "I couldn't help it."

Victor leans in. His small chuckle tickles the shell of Yuuri's ear.

"Don't lie to me, Yuuri. You're not sorry at all," he says, in a voice like honey, and Yuuri, caught, can only curl his fingers tighter, close that distance between them until there is no space for breathing.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It's the fabric, the way it flows right into the crease of his palm. The first time, it makes his hair stand on end; the loop round his neck, the encircling smoothness of it as it glides silently into place, and then he looks at himself in the dressing room mirror, tips his chin upward for a better view of what he's doing. His collar's still undone, and Yuuri pauses to fix the top button on his shirt. His reflection reaches for the tie again.

 _That is me,_ he thinks in wonderment.

As he slips the end of it through the knot in front, it spills like water between his fingers. _Ice-blue._ His hand shakes a little, steadies itself as he breathes in lightly, determined.

Outside, a carpet of snow lies thick across the pavement. Here, he is blush-warm, growing warmer; the morning sun-gold on his brow.

Behind his shoulder, he sees Minako-sensei peek round the door, cross the room towards him. She brushes a speck of dust off the sleeve of his jacket, studies him for a second and nods with critical approval.

"Well, that's as good as it's going to get," she says, and smacks him sharply on the back. Yuuri lets out a small, strangled squeak as he snaps his spine to straightness.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees himself in the glass, a metamorphosis blossoming.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Katsuki Yuuri, hoarder of sensations, keeps this one close; long after he's forgotten the finer details of his first brush with the media and a newly-captivated audience, he remembers the weight of silk. It's a siren's kiss in the hollow of his throat. So light he might have dreamt it, except that the beads of sweat are real.

 _Katsuki Yuuri, Hasetsu's poster boy,_ is not who he ever thought he'd be, but when he puts on his suit and tie and takes the stage, it is like slipping into a second skin.

In the hush of a deserted locker room, he'll let the knot come unlaced, tilt his head back and shrug off his fancy jacket. It falls, along with the tie, into a rippling heap draped over the edge of the bench.

It's just him now, just another ordinary skater in his home rink. Just Yuuri again.

He touches his fingertips to the bare skin of his collarbone, stands up and makes his way out.

The arc of his arm, sweeping softly through the frigid air, is a gesture of surrender and command all at once; he holds a fist close to his chest and gives himself over to the scratch of skates on ice, thinks of threads that loop and wind their way around him. They lie still, slack and dormant before the moment of tightening, tugging him forward relentlessly. The trail he leaves behind is narrow, but sure.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"For the last ten birthdays," says Mari, and takes a long, slow drag on her cigarette.

From under an awning, Yuuri peers out at the rain. "You really don't have to, Mari- _neechan_ —also, I don't think it was _ten_ —"

Mari exhales, a smoky sigh that dissipates beneath umbrellas, into the clouds, a postscript to the grey streets of Tokyo and the neverending parade of comers and goers, murmurs and thoughts and careless conversations at crossings and stoplights, the smell of fallen leaves and roasted chestnuts in the air. She is wearing a red coat today, seafoam-green studs in her ears that remind Yuuri of Hasetsu.

He waits for pangs of homesickness to hit, feels, instead, like he is caught up on the tide. _Home_ is there, on the shore. It lies in plain sight, close enough.

Beyond, however—

"Five, eight, ten, whatever. Your birthday's always around competition season. I haven't come to support you for a while. Here, just take it."

It runs in their blood, Yuuri knows. Mari may not understand his skating, but they are cut from the same, stubborn cloth, and they will stand here outside the department store until Yuuri accepts this gift.

So he takes the paper bag from Mari, and the tie that lies folded inside comes with him to the States. When he tightens that knot around his neck, he remembers who he is, and stands taller.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Victor Nikiforov has more ties spilling out of his overflowing trunk than Yuuri can count.

They're easy to miss, blending in with ribbons and trailing cashmere tails as Yuuri rummages through a mountain of fabric, a decade's worth of costumes, constellations stitched together and plucked from a starry sky that Yuuri watched on TV, once, saved in clippings from magazines, and reached for himself.

_Still reaching. It's not over yet, I'm not done yet—_

For a moment, Yuuri is distracted. Not by the satin and the glossy sheen of gold and white and onyx black, but by how very smooth they feel gliding between his fingers.

Closing his hand unconsciously around one of them, Yuuri looks up, into ice-blue, dancing eyes that remind him of silken armour. Victor would wear a tie like he was made for it.

That gauzy kiss in the hollow of Yuuri's throat lingers, sweet and hot.

 

 

* * *

 

 

(Springtime in Detroit: and it had been Phichit, of course, who made him realise that maybe he had a little bit of an _obsession_ —)

 

Of all of Yuuri's ties in varying shades of blue, it is the navy one with its understated pinstripes that Phichit likes best. He is not in the least surprised when Yuuri says his sister picked that one out.

"You have _very_ unfashionable taste in ties, Yuuri," Phichit informs him, cheerfully investigating the contents of his drawers like he's never heard of _personal space_.

Yuuri flings a balled-up sock across the room at him. Phichit laughs as he ducks, unrepentant.

"I like ties," Yuuri admits.

"I can see that," says Phichit, with a knowing grin.

It won't be the last time someone critiques Yuuri's sense of style. It won't be the last time he doesn't really care, either, although the next time, he knows his own mind better.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Victor winds the tie round his long, fine fingers, says, with a sunset smile spread across his face, that they're going to burn it, Yuuri smiles back just as sweetly. He reaches to take hold of the front of Victor's bathrobe, knuckles brushing Victor's pale clavicle as his hand slides downward, homespun cloth rough and familiar against his fingers.

"Would you burn the first costume you ever wore?" he asks Victor, earnest, and watches as his eyes widen. After a moment, Victor laughs, and nods.

"Okay," he says. "I get it."

He lifts his hand to his lips, kisses the end of the tie instead, and touches it lightly to Yuuri's cheek before letting it drop.

The evening slips away from them. Yuuri sees that smile fade around the edges, soften into the twilight hour. Outside his windows, the sky splits its horizon, vivid crimson to deep ocean's blue. The branches of the _sakura_ are covered with yet another dusting of early snow. Kyushu's cold front is making good on its promise.

Inside, Yuuri's still holding on to Victor's robe. It's falling open at the front. He is warm all over again, a steady smouldering to Victor's icy burn, and he lets his fingers explore the territory, finds a heartbeat beneath bare skin that will set them both aflame, a bonfire crackling into life.

 _This could bruise_ , he thinks, and presses closer.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He is a dancer, a skater, a performer; he is Katsuki Yuuri, the pride of Hasetsu, the shining star of Japan; he is Yuuri, brother and son and boy with crushes that never came to fruition; and he is _Yuuri,_ seeker and sojourner and lover.

He is so many things to so many people, and he takes his courage where he can. Sometimes, it wells up from places he had not expected.

And _silk_ , so gentle, can cut to the quick like a blade, too—

Yuuri knows something about the double-edged beauty of blades. So does Victor.

They keep coming back to them anyway, and to each other, again and over again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They're hand in glove, fingers entwined in the lift racing up, _up_ ; the air seems thinner here, and Yuuri, in his breathlessness, sees Victor's lips part slightly in a shaky exhale.

There is a magnificent view of Barcelona by night from their hotel room, but the dazzling lights, think Yuuri, are too much, more than they need, and so he does not reach for the switches when they enter. In the dark, they trip across the threshold. Yuuri finds his footing with one arm braced against the door, the other catching Victor tight round his waist.

He swallows. Tilts his chin up.

"Victor—"

The pulse of the city is their winter's tango, the little laugh from Victor's throat sudden.

"The performance has already started, huh?" he finishes, his voice airy, one eyebrow arched.

He raises one hand towards Yuuri's face, eyes never leaving him. A hair's breadth from his cheek, from the caress that Yuuri's expecting, he pauses, smirks and drops that hand, tugs his glove off with his teeth. It falls to the carpeted ground by Yuuri's feet like a challenge.

Yuuri smiles, and loosens his tie.

 

 


End file.
